Make Me Viral, Make Me Rich

by keif on August 16, 2008

Imagine this scenario – a client walks in, and they rave about something they talk an article on times online about the top ten viral ad campaigns – and they want to be on that list! They want to be a video passed from iphone to mobile to laptop – to have their campaign uploaded on youtube, vimeo and the like.

Viral means multiple outlets.

I can make a video viral – so can you. It’s a matter of creating something funny, humorous, and *most likely* racy and against the society’s norms. Just as you wouldn’t create a single ad for a campaign, you wouldn’t create one “viral” aspect for a campaign – if you notice, the political campaigns for Obama/McCain are constantly evolving and changing – like your campaign should.

Unfortunately – you need to make your viral media stick out. Poking fun helps, as does self-depreciation. But when you create your one youtube video or your one online application/widget and it fails, it merely reinforces that you can’t “will” something viral.

The point is – these are all small “campaigns” – cheaply done, and simple in nature. They weren’t products of million-dollar campaigns – but just something quirky dreamed up.
Which leads me to another item that went viral – Cahan & Associates created corporate reports in new formats – doy scouts guides, children books – because they felt “Annual reports need to evolve: They need to become more interesting and more entertaining. Otherwise, they won’t be able to compete for people’s attention.” (This is another topic altogether)

Racy, Quirky, Entertaining… I can do that!

A scene from The Ultimate Showdown

Now that you are willing to throw your corporate dignity out the window (and hand the reigns to someone else) – you can have a viral campaign. When you start interjecting your own ideas (and shooting down things as being “too much”) you risk losing out the focus – lots of discussion of you, your brand, your message – like Starbucks saw (alas, the link evades me) when they started letting people put quotes on their cups (and Starbucks refused to censor them).

What this did was create a lot of discussion from both sides of religious groups – atheists upset over religious quotes, and followers of religion upset over atheistic-themed/interpreted quotes on their cups (just check out the google link!). Lots of discussion – and starbuck willing to step to the side and say “it’s not our place to tell you what to believe” – instead they let their customers say what they want.

I’m afraid of what they may say!

No doubt a business is hesitant to go viral. They could end up looking like the joker from Batman: The Dark Knight’s awesomely successful campaign – there worried they could be the butt of a joke and out of control. This is where you start thinking about why you’re wanting to go viral – for sales, for discussion, or for attention.

The point here – you’re wanting discussion. I don’t think you’ll get ROI in terms of dollars and cents – at least not immediately. If it’s truly successful, you could end up with a hit film (I’m willing to admit – the viral campaigns for Cloverfield and The Dark Knight were cool – but didn’t make or break the films. Blair Witch? The campaign MADE the movie – “Dude, is this real? It’s not real. It couldn’t be real.” Five minutes later “Dude, is this real?” True story.)

The Elf Yourself is another quirky fun one – it doesn’t really relate to the brand, it was just something fun to do around the holidays (which helps drive traffic).

Viral campaigns are fun for the users – but it’s important to recognize that they can drive traffic and discussion and not necessarilly make you rich – but they can get you talked about.